Category Archives: Wandering thoughts…

They say the beauty of Manila has already faded through time. The city has been sometimes considered a place of deception and pretentiousness with its facade smearing all of the edifices that stood before its soil. In its contradictory nature, the homeless people who reside in the city marks the irony of progress often spoken by its government. At least, it is one way to look at it.

One time, I do not know what went inside my head but from where I live in Quezon City, I took an FX and dropped off to Rizal Park for no apparent reason. I took a stroll under the 11 a.m. heat but the strong wind kept me cool so I decided to leave the park and trudge farther. I took the middle street that divide the park and walked south. The Manila Bay is in my right while Taft Avenue, the main road for most of the transport vehicles is in my left and I continued to trudge on.

I walked slowly, carefully embracing my solitary state of walking. Before I noticed it, I am having my own perspective of Manila with each step. Homeless people appeared every now and then and the black spaghetti of electricity wires hang overhead as if the wires themselves were stricken by confusion, entangling themselves not knowing which way to go. Going back to where I stand, I decided to let the wind take me wherever they might lead me and my feet wholeheartedly obeyed.

I crossed several streets not knowing where each one of them would lead me but I always try to orient myself to where I was. For the past few minutes I kept my eyes looking back to my left to catch a glimpse of the main road where I am familiar and I was able to know where I was. I passed by United Nations Avenue and again in another point of view. From where I was, the atmosphere suddenly dropped in its quiet state as if the street is sleeping. Some of the stores, clinics and laundries were closed in broad daylight. Previously from where I was, I can hear clearly the indistinct sounds of people chatting in the most casual way of knowing what happened to the soap opera last night and the current news about corrupt politicians. Or at least that is what I made out of their voices that strung along with me as I walk the silenced street. There were presence of ghosts of what could have happened. I conditioned myself to see what it would be if the place was awake in that current moment.

Residents started to open their doors and windows gently smiling at each other until I shook myself to see that it is not happening. Not now. Although there are few people who walk the street, none of them took notice of me. I passed by as if I was a ghost myself, another possibility of the future or the past remembering what was as my attention is deeply focused to the living. Walking and walking, halfway across the street I turned the volume of my music player up, sending artificial noise from my earphones to my brain, trying to fill the silence that governs the place. And all seemed quite different in an instant.

The latter part of the street was now with music in my head. It sent the false reality that the place is alive. The half of me liked it and the other despised it. Telling me that the only sense that will make this place again to be alive is to add more artificiality in its natural state like toppings of a cake just to make it more appealing and desirable. However, I consider the place to have its own consciousness and perhaps it has chosen this way to be for Manila needs sometimes to lie down and have a place for serenity—a place where it can be how you make it to be.

Passing by another intersection, I saw a street sign that says I am in the street called Maria Orosa. I do not know where that was but I was there and it makes no difference at the moment. The place was still quiet and I continued to head south without taking sides. I walked straight towards the street in passing intersections and not turning to corners. I caught a glimpse of the other side of the Supreme Court. I was in Ermita. A place where I thought I will only hear in songs and movies and will never be.

Several thoughts synthesized itself like a lightning forms in my head as if neurons coincidentally fired up several information in my brain and connected them in an instant. There was a song by a rapper famously known by the name Gloc-9 entitled “Lando” and it follows a tragic story of two lovers that are in the lower middle class of social status and Ermita was mentioned in a line that took the whole song in a twist. It goes: Isang gabi ng Huwebes, lumubog na ang araw / Doon tayo magkita, pasalubong ko’y siopao / Upang ating paghatian pagdating ng hapunan / Meron palang nakaabang sa amin na kamalasan / Eskinita sa Ermita, may sumaksak kay Elsa / Sa tagiliran isang makalawang na lanseta / Ang gamit upang makuha lang ang kan’yang pitaka… And upon seeing the Supreme Court stand high and grandiose in its soil makes me cringe. The song somehow comments upon the struggles of the people in the same condition and what is worse is the social commentary of the song through the end is the story of Lando after the incident who went insane and roam the streets of Manila as homeless without anyone, with her beloved gone and justice stands silently, contained inside the pretentious edifice to say that there exists an idea of justice but itself is never justified to exist. The power of justice is only to those who lives as grandiose as the building itself and casts no power on the narrow alleys. I moved on.

Padre Faura intersected at the end of the street and there was no more road to go forward from where I was so I took the corner to my right and as if Manila is trying to comfort me through its capitalist form, Robinsons Place Manila flaunted its sheer prosperity in the middle of nowhere. As I, who has nowhere to go seems fitting to go inside and so I did. Before I went in to a bright commercialized space, there was a small inscription beside the entrance which most people did not pay attention to. I took time to read it and it says that the very place the mall is erected is the same place where Ateneo de Municipal was once been. Perhaps it is there to educate some as I technically was when I read it to mention the name of Rizal once again to somehow glorify the place to say that he was there. However, I considered it an epitaph for a grave that was buried under the imperializing effects of consumerist society. The demolition of education and by itself making it a commodity, replacing it with towering false necessities. Despite all these, the guards continue what they had to do as I walk inside.

The cooling of air conditioning machines dried the sweat off my back and scalp. Only to find out later on that it is unhealthy but it cannot be undone so I discarded the thought off of my mind and continued to witness the abundance of things that I do not really need. I scouted and scanned all its floors. Passing by stalls one after the other and riding escalators up and down tired my legs and feet. Although it is bright inside and things do shine more than they supposed to, the comfort I needed to repress the reality of the real world outside did not suffice for mental stress turned itself into a physical one. It’s almost lunch and trying not to spend much for today, I went outside of the defamiliarized space that made all things a spectacle and nothing more.

I ended up on the other side of the mall. Street signs show that I was in Pedro Gil but once again, there was no road to keep moving forward so I took the direction to my left when I saw the walls of Philippine General Hospital coming into view towards Taft Avenue and turned right on the first corner that welcomed me.

I was at Guerrero Street and kept moving forward. Crossing Malvar and Nakpil, the places were still governed by silence and once I passed by a place that I think is abandoned. Ceilings were torn down, the wood panels of the second floor of the house were drastically misaligned, the iron grills in front of the windows were covered with rust and its white paint are slowly turning to brown. While several coffee shops presented themselves one after the other. Upon reaching Remedios, I thought that it’s time to lose myself around Manila a little more so I took a right turn towards Roxas Boulevard and setting my back against Taft Avenue—from the place I am familiar towards a place I never knew existed.

I ended up on a small circular park that can be considered as a plaza. Only finding out later on that the place is called Adriatico Circle (Google Maps, however names this place as Remedios Circle). There was a basketball court where some kids are playing and pedicab drivers were sheltered under the shade of a small tree and I saw them looking at me. Perhaps they know that I am not from this place. I am an alien in a sense not that of an extraterrestrial creature but alienated from the place that I thought I already knew from the books I have read and the movies I have seen and the experience is not anything like it.

My feet feel like screaming and my soles began to burn. The heat of the concrete spreads from the surface of my shoes to the inside. I managed to get a drink inside a convenience store nearby next to Café Adriatico and caught up to the ghost of myself outside wandering alone, staring at the statue of Marcelo H. Del Pilar and wondering why he is there.

Malate at noon perhaps is still without the cars and jeepneys roaming around. The place is without engine sounds and carbon monoxide though some cars drive by but only a few of them passed. Under the heat of the sun at noon, I drink my bottled carbonated soda and along the indifferent and strange cool breeze of summer, I felt comfortable. The heat was weirdly just right and enough for me to pass through Malate. I walked straight through Adriatico until I reached an intersection in Quirino. From then on life took hold of me in its most basic form.

There was a slums area nearby Victoria Court and I saw children playing with shoe boxes with dolls that are in a bad shape. Some are smeared with dirt, others had missing limbs and slowly, I walked to catch a glimpse of life that is entirely different to me. Through the children, I saw the innocence on the way they play. Running around and chasing one another while others play on the sidewalk with old toys. The warmth of the sun suddenly felt indifferent and the sight gives me the warmth of an imagined family within the minds of small individuals. I saw a woman in a pushcart by the sidewalk, sleeping and by the sight, I assumed that the pushcart itself is her home. Dirty pillows and a blanket covered her under the shade of a tree in a hot afternoon. The sun may only be a counter-effect to balance the cold silence that are only filled by the laughs of innocent children.

However, Manila strikes you in your most vulnerable state. A couple of children in their pre-teen age approached me asking for the bottle of soda I am holding but as they ask, one immediately attempted to grab it and hopefully my reflexes was enough to keep it away from his hand. I said no cold-heartedly and they left me after trying to persuade me several times.

I walked past Quirino, alongside Manila Zoo, following where the street will end until I ended up on Ocampo and turned to my left. Now I know where I will go. Going straight to Ocampo Street, crossing Roxas Boulevard, I find solace under the ramp of CCP.

The wind blew strong against my skin, drying my sweat on my back and on my scalp and the forming tears around my eyes. I sat there for almost an hour staring past the cars as the drivers also stared at me. I walked for almost two hours. My feet are screaming in agony. My stomach yearns for food. My heart longs for her as all events that transpired before today flashed back as I sit still. Refusing to walk anymore, my mind rushes in to backtrack and continue the walk to the past. Back to the place that I knew and found out the reason why I did the walk. The process of losing myself inside the city of deception, pretentiousness and the crippling figure of the façade edifices. The people in the city, the silent streets and unjustified justice is the mental disorder of the place. The city itself is sick and suffering from a psychological illness because of torn down history replaced by imposed system to capitalize on the things that people do not need.

Only did I realize while sitting under the ramp of the acclaimed Cultural Center of the Philippines that the thoughts flashed because I was in Pasay and in the outskirts of Manila. All of these came after the drug the city has implanted on me while I was distracted to all of the sceneries that occupied my mind. Lino Brocka was right. However, I took on a different flight without the neon lights. The claws that urge people to experience Manila is by the opinions of others about it only to find out first-hand that Manila itself is a schizophrenic space governed by its own paradoxes and inconsistencies. A roller-coaster ride of numbing pain of silence and innocent noises of ghosts that take you away from your own reality. Manila has been a victim of its own effects that the city has turned into a ghost and a memory and its physical being only manifests the memory of a beauty of what once was and transforming all consciousness that lives within it.

Until then, Manila will continue to create the same characters such as Lando and Julio Madiaga. The former who died a symbolic death by losing his sanity after his beloved Elsa has been killed by a robber and the latter who died in the hands of the angry mob after avenging his beloved Ligaya. The characters who only sought to live a good life but was eaten by the nature of Manila. It is either you die, or fall into madness. On and on, the chorus of the song “Lando” will play as Francis Magalona sings: Huwag kang mabahala, may nagbabantay sa dilim / Nag-aabang sa sulok at may hawak na patalim / Di ka hahayaan na muli pang masaktan / Huwag ka nang matakot sa dilim.

The place that guards its inhabitants and at the same time kills them at their most vulnerable state. Caressing your back as it betrays you once for the very last time.

Every Sunday mornings when the 8 a.m. sunlight fills our living room, I sit right beside this eight year-old kid and watch him write down notes on a spring-bind notebook from a Chemistry and Physics book. He goes on to writing and writing and writing more, not bothering if he has taken breakfast yet but I can see in his face the effort to understand every detail of the complex world of science. He is a curious kid, asking out things, this and that and I remember him ask me why that everytime he lets go of a plastic bag in a moving jeepney, the plastic bag drops down on the top of his feet when he expect it to hold itself in place, hang in mid-air and be left behind by the accelerating jeepney for the reason that it has no contact with the moving jeepney while it is suspended in the air. I have always admired his curiosity as a child but as always, he writes and writes everything that he can find in the Chemistry and Physics book.

I hovered over the book he is referring to and saw the delicate illustrations and the words and explanations were carefully laid out in layman’s terms. However, I noticed something strange upon how the boy writes his notes on his notebook and saw the exact same words on the book—he is copying all the contents of the book.

Even though I never got the chance to ask him then, if I was to go back in time and ask him, “Why do you do this? What are you exactly trying to achieve? Do you understand all that is written in this page?” But even though I had the chance to ask these questions, I know what he will reply to me, “I do not know,” and probably smirk, trying to make out the purpose of his act. If he would ask me his same question about the plastic bag, perhaps he might get the same answer from me.

This is not an exercise to futility because he loves copying the whole thing. Time after time, he will shake his elbows off the tiredness but he will still continue as I sit there and witness his progress from the most basic concepts of the elements and compounds to the Browning reaction and from gravity and inertia to the centripetal force. I am sure he did not understand all of these things because this is way too advanced for a third grade student. His attempt to make things out of things he cannot fully comprehend rested on his hand’s capabilities to endure what his mind cannot reflect on. This is the kid I know that goes out the same day later on to play and run along to the speed of tricycles in the street, deliberately racing against the machine on an upward slope and makes it halfway until his body gives up and starts to decelerate and let the tricycle maintain its speed and get away leaving him with his hands on his knees, sweat dripping from his forehead and heavily breathing, gathering oxygen to explode in a laughter of having another chance to test his limits against steel and gasoline. When he has recovered, he will run back down with greater speed to wait for another tricycle to race with.

In himself, I know time has frozen and bound him to this kind of attitude over time, people would not often understand why he do such things when he can simply say, “I do not know but I am happy with it.” Though he may have a lot of questions, the lack of answers is not a problem because he believes such things will be resolved in time. The kid will grow up but he will still remain to be a kid that will race against the things he will see that will determine his new limit. He always wants to know how fast he can get, how far he can go and how successful can his own actions be considering that his way is way too far for others to comprehend. This child is making himself out of his own doing. The fact that not everyone can see the meaning behind the things he do and neither do I upon seeing him rewrite a book he does not understand but he still do it anyway, is not futile because I see in him the type discovery that he establishes around him to understand what he knows he cannot.

Only then, I realized his question about the plastic bag in a moving jeepney that the answer lies in Physics—the very book that he has been reading and copying. Newton’s first law of motion states that “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” Objects tend to “keep on doing what they’re doing.” It is called inertia, the same force that makes you lean forward when the driver of the car comes to a sudden stop. Since the car was in motion, your body is at rest but moves along with it and since the car suddenly stops, your body will keep on moving with the same speed, thus making your body lean forward.

The same thing happens to the plastic bag inside the moving jeepney. It cannot remain suspended in the air once you let it go and be left behind because of the fact that you are part of the moving jeepney and carrying the inertia causing the force to spread from your body to the plastic bag and are both affected by the same speed imposed by the jeepney’s acceleration. The moment you let go of the plastic bag in mid-air, it will still move at the same rate of speed while in mid-air but because of gravity, it will shortly land directly on your feet.

This is the information that I would gladly and almost enthusiastically share with that kid that I met ten years ago. This is the answer that I can give to him instead of shrugging and dropping the question. We could talk about it and make experiments with it carrying our own plastic bags and ride on the jeepneys not caring about where it would take us but only for the reason of finding out if the answer is true. I can imagine the smile on his face as we try to uncover the questions we do not have ready answers for. We both share the same satisfaction and ecstasy in discovery. The pleasure of insatiable curiosity in seeking out the questions that would test our limits and race against the machine is intensified by the both of us. We may not know why we are doing the things we are doing but we are happy about it.

The boy is the inertia. I am the car in motion. The memory is the unbalanced force of a sudden stop that compels me to see the boy that I once was, taking the past to surpass the present causing it to stop, reconfigure the time and redefine the notion that to look forward is as ironic as looking at the reflection in the mirror.

Once upon a time, we were a fairy tale until we come to the last phrase of our story and realized that “happily ever after” is not the end of all stories. I recognize your pain and anguish and as far as I can see, the most beautiful pain is the one we cannot disguise or hide. But just as like the times when we were strangers, this rooted from the promise of a kiss that rescued you from the promise of frozen time.

Have I not made any move, this would not have happened. Perhaps, I am to blame for I am always lost to my duties instead of spending my time with you that you are led to such conclusions. But I am not going to refute all of those for I respect your own thoughts and for making you feel all of those, I am really sorry. Believe that I did not intend to make you feel that way nor for once did I think little of you. We are only victims of our own preconceived assumptions. Though I am guilty acting through your perspective, I take it as a reminder I will never need.

A man—and I mean man and woman—is always flooded with initial (and in being so) irrational emotions in a tremendous and loaded stimuli such as a kiss upon waking. This appears romantic as the act for your own redemption when it does not mean anything other than that. We did not happen by accident but have you not realized that all good stories end with the saving, a kiss until the last page of the tale? The answer is that the beginning is the only good part. As children, we are obscured from the hardships of reality that we are not told how to overcome it and I believe this has fallen upon you. The princess is saved and she is alive but what accounts for you to think that it will always be the same after the ending of the story? But in regards to the kiss, it does not mean that it is not an act out of impulsive desire but fired by my passion and hope that you are still alive. I may not have known you before, nor have I known your name but seeing you alive after what I have done is something beyond imaginary that exceeds our natural biological responses and I expected that we are more than just strangers. If the hands of Fate willed this then we shall be together beyond happily ever after.

Certainly, generalizations would not help us now. From what I have read from your letter, you are once again succumbing to the social structures delicately made to suffice for the answers we cannot fully grasp; but we can only speculate through what we see. You should have confronted me and know that each and every human being is different regardless of the gender. If I have not yet exposed myself to you, then ask me why I am the way I am. Because everything goes odd after you have started to remove the veil for we do not know all things, and all we do not know, we cannot understand and what we cannot understand, we are afraid of and tend to curse them just because of the simple fact that we do not understand. I may have carried characteristics that have enticed you but all of those things are only the light from my fingertips and are too far from my very core. Men are not living bold individuals that what you see is what you get. Men are people too, and I recognize that also with the women and by people, I meant different by nature but equal in capabilities. I do not want you to think of me as unfeeling as a generalized man should be. Only that I am not as expressive as you are because if a woman’s force is emotions, then I refuse to confront you with emotions for nothing good will come if you fight force with force. Wars do not determine who is right and gods do not favor those who is virtuous and true. These are the follies of man. And I refuse to live by the words of the others.

I want that the same for you. I do not want to define yourself through what you see in me. Because I want to be with you as you who are supposed to be. I do not intend to mean that “you as what the society wants you to be” but I want you to be free in my arms because a woman is not supposed to be limited by being her and I want you to experience that from me. I am doing this to make you by your own doing. I only hope that this freedom I am gladly offering would not be taken as an advantage but I am only here, standing up waiting for you to stand by my side as I watch you lay down wailing and complaining about inequalities but rather you must see yourself from the eyes of another to know where you are and what you have really been doing. All I am giving you is a chance to liberate yourself for I have taken away that bonds from you and all you must do is realize it. Is this not a help for what you want to be? The world cannot be changed unless we initiate the change that it needs—the minds of the people. I am making us the Adam and Eve of this century and we will learn from the mistakes of the people that came before us. Do you not want that? If I have given up my masculinity, would you also give up your femininity? Besides, what do those two concepts even mean? Must we conform to the fact that we understand the human condition of gender bias because we created it? And if so, I believe we need a change within ourselves to find peace with one another. I offer you a different view of the world. I am opening not only doors and windows but even showing your mind what could be. Every single word secretly paints a fairy tale of when we melt into one.

A man is no more than a woman. The social structure has conditioned our minds to think the way they do. The only conclusion I have led myself into is that you have not realized the person I am for I am different from the rest. That is why you look for answers in the places where my tracks are nowhere to be found. I understand that. I apologize for the times I was not by your side that you may have tried to look at me through different men and equate your thoughts and compare them to me as you try to ask yourself the questions that you have answered yourself in which I provided none.

The songs of love make you feel but does not give any answers for they are fixated by the notes and lyrics and does not change over time. The songs of men, yearning for their beloved as they utter words of loneliness, rejection and incompleteness without the other. But love is not complementary and love must be whole in package within a person. Begin to love yourself first. Make time for yourself and be you, stay that way and no one can ever break you. I am not supposed to be a brick and you are not a house that would crumble when I am not there. I want to see you happy for being yourself and doing what you want for I deserve not any of your radiance once the sun starts to set. Love is the promise of beauty and immortality shared by two lovers that are complete by themselves and therefore transcend beyond completeness together. A good fabric cannot be made if one thread can easily snap in such little force but it needs the completeness in itself to create a magnificent whole.

The words of endearment such as angels, Muse and others are only spoken to women to feel good of themselves and must you not elevate yourselves and free from the false necessity of those words? The treatment of men to women is a delusion—for it is an illusion shared and experienced by several people—and setting them to a pedestal is entirely needless if we all want to be equal. If women feels unimportant, suppressed, or marginalized then they must realize themselves as an equal counterpart to men but not to the point of having domination to the world for the idea that patriarchy is dead. Our minds are lagging behind time. We are still conditioned to the thinking of the past for it may have been an evolutionary product that our ancestors think this way because it has been instilled in the minds of several generations until we have come into existence. Now we must remove that medieval mindset and realize the actualization of our time. We do not need a separation of sexuality apart from our biological structures as male and female. Boundaries do not keep anybody out, they just fence us in. There is no need to act a role or wear the clothes one has to because society told them to do so. Liberation is not achieved through another but within the self. To survive is to recondition the self’s mindset and be released from these social structures. To be complete in one’s own sense. And this is how I see everything.

You can hate me. It only means you do not understand. But it does not show that you are right nor am I. And I can only state myself in defense for you are blind to my thoughts and I am to yours. We search for higher ground when we start to feel that we are about to drown. Only to realize that it is not the water where we are drowning but to the air we are breathing. We are asphyxiated by our own thoughts and we cannot actually see the same thing because we are not looking at it in the same space even we are at the same time. We only have perspectives that would move us to tell others what we experience to glorify our existence. Recognition brings us happiness that is why we seek it to others but I stand to my ideals that happiness is the “italization” of experience to the things that would soon fall into decay and we as humans are no exception. Start to be happy in yourself and magnify those experiences and live life to the point of tears for tears are the orgasmic release of emotions that cannot be contained in the moment by consuming oneself to the flames of joy, being burned to ashes and be reborn like the phoenix, and I want you to carry its beauty as you experience to fly with brilliance, to die, and try to live again. I intend to let you experience this beauty in aesthetic arrest that we will discover the world in awe—defined as a strong feeling of fear or respect and also wonder—, the sublimity of the world through nature and this is the experience that I want to share with you but only when you have built yourself as a complete whole and release yourself from the bindings of the social structures, then we can start to go on through this journey. We have already cheated death so many times. If we are going to die, why not cheat it again tonight?

I may not have rescued you but instead, I disturbed you from your sleep. But do you agree of the beauty that ripples form only when there is disturbance in the water? Within that context, I know you are not whole such as a child with no sense of self desires his toys to make himself full or “occupied” for the time being. There is the sense of dependency upon objects that makes him whole but the moment that object is lost, the child will wail and is also the one who is “lost” for the object defines himself and such as a child looks for other children whom he also thinks “mirrors” himself. But I cannot mold you into what I desire for I respect your individuality and only if you would want to come with me. I am not as a prince as what they tell me but I am more of an artist beneath this armor, swords and shield you see but really, not all knights in shining armor can make your dreams come true. I am still a kid in aging skin; a hypocrite trying to grow.

I do not desire for you to live as a housewife but live an entirely different life apart from others—a life of a human being. From the start, I had set you free that even your heart will treat your ribcage not that of a prison but a newfound home for in these interpretations and meanings we define ourselves and for what you accuse of me as a man not being manly enough, first realize why cannot I?

Lost in your eyes,

Anonymous

P.S. Forget about tonight. Tomorrow will be here so soon and we’ll be busy singing, “The wicked witch is dead!”

If not in these types of manifestations we see life then we see our mirror selves being reflected by other people. Our insecurities that arise with each and every push and pull of emotions whenever you see a certain person, for example someone who is more capable than you are in things that you endeavor. But these things, these chains of perspectives don’t have to be bound by a single force of thought that may gradually elevate itself in an inverse manner throwing yourself to negativity and letting yourself become the thing you used to hate. There is more to see even in a droplet of water sitting by a leaf on the branch of a tree. Occupying that single space with such natural effortless grip of unseen friction between the water and the surface of the leaf. The water droplet, bending the light into little unseen spectrum by the eyes, magnifying your vision by imagination even if your eyes see nothing, the very thing that you can imagine it means the thought is on the hands of possibility.

If life can be seen as repetitions or patterns in nature then we can fully see life in its own beauty. Aesthetics teaches us that beauty and meaning are product of unified objectivity and subjectivity. There must be a standard for such things and it is where art draws the line. However, the basis of judgement is not synonymous to appreciation. Judgement brings us to the point of decision where we conclude whether an object is a work of art or not. Whether if it transcends you to another realm or successfully meet the standards that are raised to qualify a thing as art. Appreciation comes from the audience and not to the art itself. To the subjective perspective of the person consuming the aura the art tries to create. In these notions we see that there are actually patterns that persist within nature that help us get along with our lives and living it without noticing these repetitions lead to lack of life appreciation and judging our life as dull and uneventful.

Because life is a work of art. It is the spirit of events that transpires in your very being. It is a living thing in itself that manifests in your body and mind. It is a thing of beauty, of inspiration of nature within the very walls of our skins and inside our bloodstream as the oxygen rides inside your arteries carried by your red blood cells all throughout your system to keep you alive as you go on with your lives and zoom out to see yourself ride public transportation that will take you to work or at school and both both of these worlds sustains life. The life of a human being and the life of civilization, respectively. These parallel universes which are the microcosm or the macrocosm of another in a systemic pattern that create life or the things that blooms and creates a collective consciousness in its own self.

These different realms of realities coexist in a single continuum that we call Life as white light is divided into different colors of the spectrum. The universality of Nature is beyond gods and goddesses. It is transcendence that humanity is capable of. This kind of higher state of consciousness is necessary to be the agents of the Earth and create to be the Gaea’s children for the early Greeks and this thought is highly surprising that we, ourselves exist in different universes in one single motion from the Big Bang until now as we circumnavigate the world and we sit on our cozy couches, everything is happening at the same time.

This is a door to another perspective. Just like how great movies let you hang on your seats and leave you breathless until it ends. You transcend into another realm. Into another perspective with another experience of life by two hours. As you watch everything unravel twenty four frames per second, we have twenty four hours to capture a day. Movies and books are so dense that you just keep everything away for a moment to catch up with the life you have left in exchange for a captivating novel or story because you see the world in an entirely different perspective.

The constant intrusions of nature to art and the ability to see every inch of pattern that describes that this is the beauty we should see. The beauty of process that are the echoes of every final stage of the artform. The process in which the artist sways with madness and consumed by his own reality is where beauty originates. Because in each stroke of the paintbrush and layers of color resides another reality that instigates the art to be. The words and phrases in every novel or poem hides the very thing the writer wish to remain unsaid as secret, kept in every space he put in paragraphs and verses; in between every words that come from a thought is a manifestation of an idea. An idea that was once uncreated, unseen and undetected. So we all begin there. From a single abstract idea by your imagination that was once wasn’t true but is now. Intangible and perfect ideas from Plato’s World of Forms that are now concrete with its own imperfections and beauty. Life is an artform.

Everything else could be a window to another door. And it’s not complicated when you start to see things and be consumed by the patterns when you see it everywhere. Because that’s how nature creates beauty through art.

It doesn’t matter how your life should end but the quality of life depends on how you live it.

Make every step in your process be meaningful and step up to the standards of beauty through art.

And the world is making a huge fuss about it. Whether your parents, friends or even your lovely pets.

The unnatural. The taboo. The spaces that consist behind the closed doors. The restricted. The forbidden. The don’ts. The what ifs. The unseen, invisible and the unexplained. The monster under the bed.

The mysteries of life is what fires up the curiosity of people and therefore adds vigor and color to the everyday life. We are tired of what we know and see if what we are experiencing is truly what life truly is. And yet, such thing as what I’ve just said is what you already knew and probably bored out of your sofa, reading this post. Probably, you don’t have a sofa but this is how predictable the world may seem.

What use is a box if it is empty? Most probably to fill in with new things that could fill the space and meet its capacity. However there is a completely different box. Unopened and in the darkest corner of your basement. It is no ordinary box. It is a black metal box and has a lock and can only be unlocked with a certain set of numbers. It may contain several things you can think of based from the dimensions of the box. It can be huge, small but it doesn’t matter because it all depends on what you can make out of it. The set of numbers are unknown. The thing or things that could be inside is unknown. It could be anything. It could be nothing. But you ask yourself, “What great thing could be possibly locked inside this box?” but in the back of your head, something whispers that it could be empty. The lock is deceiving you. The limit is what makes your mind go wild. But your mind is curious and it disregarded the possibility of the nothingness inside the locked box. Because we are never contented with anything empty and we always put things inside that we can think of that will fit.

Let us try and open the box. You see a 4-digit number lock. The possibilities of each set of number are now crowding your mind. Like endless spoiled and impatient little children waiting in line, screaming for their respective turns but which will you choose first? It doesn’t matter and you began entering random set of numbers with the hopes to unlock the box. You have entered the trial and error stage. Your impatience is growing. Another number set. One after the other. You wait for the click–the signal that you succeeded unlocking the box. Silence. Wrong. You try for another set of numbers. In this situation, you see your masochistic side. Your patience is wearing thin. You cannot open the box, yet you try. You are tired. You lost too much time unlocking the box. What is inside, became your obsession.

So I leave the decision to you. Now, as long as there is still time left for you to enjoy the remainder of your life. You can hide the box and leave it alone for the rest of your life and go back to where you left off, or you can try and open the box because you still cling to the hope you have. The latter has consequences. Severe ones. But one thing is for sure: you cannot bring back the time you have used to open the box. Still, the possibility of it being empty is not ruled out but it is not what you believe. There is something.

Take the first option, leave and forget about everything then stop reading this post right now and go back to your own life.

Take the second option, read on and prepare for the consequences.

I had opened the box and the number is 2710.

The box is empty.

What use is a box if it is empty? Most probably to fill in with new things that could fill the space and meet its capacity. However this is a completely different box. You found a box that is full of nothing. This box took almost half of your time being alive and you have nothing. But this is the only box you have right now. This is now in your possession. Everything that you could have been at this point in time could have been different. But you chose the box. The empty metal box. Which has nothing. You found your life. You found what you are looking for. And time has never deprived you of the chance to start all over again.

It is in itself what we could not see or obscured from our vision and understanding is what makes the little neurons in our brains ignite and floor the gas pedal to power up the engine of Hope. To venture the unknown, the future and the possible past that are never truly there. The futility of men to seek such water-less trenches deep below the grounds of sanity, into the dark, engulfing void where severe consequences and uncertainty lie. The risks are hanged and weighed in the balance with a continuous increase to topple the stack of what is at stake, what you bargained which consists of the things that you loved most. It is where man finds the entrance to madness.

Down the rabbit-hole where Alice faced the unnatural is the place where we turn the tables, close the curtains and tread to the un-walkable path. It is not about courage. It is not about bravery. It is not about safety and certainty but a question that has to be answered, “Are you mad enough to give up all that you know to replace them with something…exquisitely sophisticated?”

Remove the doubts and lies; take all of the irregularities, the chaos, entropy, discord and everything that can possibly lead to destruction and severing of ties. Of all that is left is an uneventful life, place and time. A colorless world woven out of the true meaning. Without obscurity and thinking. Reasoning and imagination will leave the world and all we have there is and all that our brains will do is to kill every brain cell in side of it because we have come to the time of a collective acceptance of information. No questions asked, the stimuli aren’t enough, the mind is in deep slumber and the information itself has grasped and hold our brains to empower an idea. The evolution of ideas some of us may recognize as Memetics. An unseen revolution in an entirely different realm of reality whereas the generators of ideas are now being ruled by its creation.

Fabrication only lies when I look into those eyes. The way it fascinates me is in such at an exemplary level to marvel upon my own thoughts and stir it by yours. Even so, it compels me to abandon clarity and face the unknown emotions filed up with every single feature you resonate. The vibrant colors you possess marches in a way that it keeps me from hanging on for nothing. Just observing Nature’s organic wonder embellished in your name that captures the beauty so unique yet far from my reach.

You leave a trail of amazement that I consume yet turning my excitement to grief. There were too many people that see you for who you are, yet I can compare it from what I see. From who you are to me, and it’s what matters most because you were with me everytime a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. What I could make of you without limits and it’s already on process. I am immortalizing you through words and I wish you’d appreciate that.

For a story told in verses and paragraphs, of death and rebirth, of beauty and madness, of loneliness and hopelessness, to visit the good despite my suffering from lack of spoken words only to be filled by an imaginary cowardly voice, that speaks of nonesense for all people except you. And this is for you alone.

A work of terrible fiction based from my experience. So I must apologize for every wrong choice of words and for every unbelievable nightmares this could possess in order to amplify the things I feel.

In other words, where you are, even every night where you sleep. Lying on your bed in between those warm sheets, I exist. Through memories of indirectness and whines. I want to be as discreet as I can be until we see each other face to face. And this written work shall serve as the bidding for every night, to watch you sleep, remove your fears and wipe away all of your tears to sing you a lullaby and kiss you good night.

This day is dull, yet it’s bright. It’s like I’m living a life covered in fog. I know something is wrong but my vision is blurred by something I cannot fully comprehend. The time is still, yet the hands of the clock move and I can hear it’s annoying ticking sound every second as if it’s mocking me. As if I can hear time laughing at me, looking at me directly in the face trying to make sense of what is happening around me. Then, I’ll realize that the time I spent thinking was wasted because I’ll come out with nothing. Not even a trace of reason behind this gray feeling when you just want life to pass by and stare at the strands of time that passes every minute.

I feel like I’ve been too ahead of time the past week and all that is left for me to do at this moment is absolutely nothing. It’s as if I already used my time for this week in the past week, yet I always feel like I have to do more things than the allocated time for a day. I need more time and I’m being impatient. Yes. That may be it.

I’m rushing things and I know I shouldn’t. We can’t buy more time in our lives so I feel like rushing it. I want to do more things than this life has to offer. I want to learn more but reality hits me hard when death proudly presents itself in my mind.

Everyone says that everything comes at the right time so I almost always spend my time thinking when in the near future could possibly be that right time to exist. And there it goes. I keep missing it.

Thinking too much isn’t helping either. I don’t like being limited so I always push towards the boundaries and it has been a habit I cannot undo.

Being too much ahead of everything isn’t something I should keep on doing. And now is the time to do things right.

Blend in the society while weaving the world into words and create influence. There’s always a room for a change because Time is never still.

I have no one else to talk to so I’d rather spill what’s in my mind here.

I’m writing this to let me feel that someone’s listening. To fool myself that someone is eager to know my case. Even though there’s no response, I’m taking my chances for someone to hear my helpless voice.

Because I feel locked up. No one’s trying to help and it’s been years of struggle. Much have I said that my chains are unbound but no. I say that I am free but no. I don’t know if it’s only me. Exposing myself in plain sight is not my thing but I guess I have no choice. I already went through this point of no return.

I try to be happy. Everyone tells me that. Move on. Yeah, but it’s never that easy for me. Judge me. Tell me I’m weak, a coward, a douche or a fucking asshole, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been through that. I’m expert in making a whole total shit out of myself. These chains seem to grip much tighter around my neck.

It’s asphyxiating. You have nowhere to go. You have no one to talk to. Some friends are busy. Some don’t understand and will just leave you to rot. Help screams from within and this is an echo. A cry that’s ricocheting around these four walls I’m into. Words that have been plaguing my mind for almost a lifetime.

That is if I still wake up tomorrow. Sometimes I wish I shouldn’t have. Death has been standing by my side for a long time now. He whispers things in my ear. Words that few would talk about. Words others fear to talk about. Words that can lead me to his place. I always try to ignore him. His voice just booms whenever I’m alone but I’m used to it. The only thing I hate is that it’s an eternal struggle for me to stand back up. I’m always caught in the middle of the process of rebuilding myself when I’ll just break down. And you don’t know how it feels. How every inch of sweat you poured into that confidence. That smile I’ve always wanted to show to everybody. To show that I can, too, such as themselves, to be positive. To show them all that I can do it by myself. But before I even place my feet on the ground, before I could stand tall and proud, the pressure builds up and pushes me back down. Countless of times, have I fell on my hands and knees. I’m searching for valid reasons but they seem to evade me.

I can’t open the door. The windows are too little. The light I see is only coming from the extreme darkness this room is projecting. It’s too dark. I’m not sure if day even exists out there.

Is the sun still shining bright?

Can I still wave and greet the moon: Hi?

Do the seas still crash its waves to the rocks?

Will the sky be peaceful once rain stopped to fall?

Can I still recognize the face who will look at me in the mirror?

Will I still remember the faces who stood by my side?

Can I still feel how it’s like to feel?

Do they still help people behind these doors?

Will the light shine my face bright as I inhale the calming breeze of your breath?

Well, technically speaking, I do exist but not on the physical plane. Fictional characters. That’s what they call it, right? That’s how you people recognize a personality without the necessity for a physical body to exist, yes? I can say though, that’s only an example of what I am but no. Being fictional is something or at some cases, someone who lives in an utterly different reality that that of the one who perceives the mental existence of that character. I am not like that. I live with the same reality most people are in this planet we call Earth. I coexist with a body, but the body is not me. I could exist without a body but it would be impossible for me to touch or move objects. Some people who like to watch movies might call me a ghost, religious people would call me a spirit or a soul. You have the freedom to choose what to call me but I would like to present myself as an Idea.

As one, coming into existence is such a nerve-racking feat. So I am thanking this person who is typing for me now using this tiny notebook for using his brain to think, and for refusing to do so in the past, I may not have achieved this state.

This is not being in a state of denial to refuse to exist physically but recognizing your deeper sense. I have met people–using this body, of course–who also exist as an Idea. We talk using our mouths but we converse through our minds. Words are a powerful manifestation of an Idea. It is the way of breaking down the concepts and expressing it as how you understand it. And in exchanging ideas, you’ll know much more the sense and purpose of a person’s life.

The body is nothing but a vessel. A vessel to give us the chance to take our own course.

If any of you who are reading this is considering me as a product of a psychological disorder, well, I AM NOT. I am a projection of myself inside my head who wants to reach out through this physical world. Keeping in touch with your physical aspects with the physical world is something that is too obvious for humans to realize. It is never restricted for different planes to interact, but only made possible through a medium. The body is the medium and I see others to use them only what it really is and not what else could be possibly achieved by it.

I am not doing this to wave at everyone and boom at their faces to give them information that I simply exist. Well, then SO WHAT?

Everything has a purpose. If you can’t comprehend what is, look at something that is not. Life is like a vast ocean. You have too swim deeper. You have to swim deep even if it takes for your lungs to crush because of the pressure or the waves push you back ashore. Something so important and valuable as answers to your own questions only you can provide is impossible to achieve through petty feats. It just comes along with petty answers. And you’re better than that. Just keep swimmin’.

It is something that has faded through Time, collecting dust in the corner of your cerebral cortex. The meaning and purpose many has lost importance of. It is something that we beg the answers for but never truly have the thought to engage ourselves to find what is lost within. Many have complained but never tried to sort it out.

I am a type of Idea who is still what most consider as an infant. A baby. So small that it could tickle the emotions of the unconscious, yet you don’t know what I truly am after.

So I am challenging everyone to seek out yourselves.Their existence as an Idea. To be Conscious. To be Eternal.

Along with this body, I grow. It is not measured by inches or meters. I expand. Just how our universe continually is. I am a manifestation of a matter. A result of fulfilling its mother’s purpose. I am the Big Bang inside this human’s mind.

I find it interesting not to keep myself only for me for a very long time. Sometimes you have to let go of yourself. You have to, in order to experience the thrills of every adventure that awaits. No one knows where you will lead yourself in finding you. It may take a long time to find yourself again but you’ll leave time behind. With memories of where you’ve been, where you’ve gone into and who made that adventure worth remembering. The next thing you’ll know, you’re not the same “you” you’ve been chasing. You’ll never find yourself because at the very beginning, you never lost yourself.